


Each Time You Close Your Eyes

by westernredcedar



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Jack is a ridiculous nerd, M/M, Minor Angst, Nightmares, Sleep talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 17:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11536839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar
Summary: “Do you talk in your sleep?” Jack asks over frittata the next morning.Bitty’s cheeks pink up and his eyes get huge. “Oh lord, did I?”“I think so, Bits. You tried to tell me something about pineapples at three a.m.”





	Each Time You Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Over on tumblr, my dear porcupinegirl offered me this lovely prompt: "Jack comforting Bitty after those bad dreams we know he has."
> 
> I've been writing a lot of angst, so this ended up lighter than I expected that prompt might go. I just needed these two to be sweet with each other, so they were. Thanks, boys!

It’s their third night sharing a bed when Bitty starts talking.

“Don’t try that. It’s next to the kitchen.” Bitty’s voice is loud and clear and startles Jack awake. 

“What’s that, bud?” Jack asks, rolling over and gently rubbing Bitty’s shoulder. “The kitchen?”

“There’s plenty of pineapples.”

“Hmm?” Jack squints over at Bitty. Bitty’s eyes are closed and his face is pressed into his pillow. 

While Jack watches, Bitty blows out a long breath and then turns over and doesn’t say anything more. 

“Bits?” Jack asks, but there’s no reply. Jack waits a few minutes, his hand still resting on Bitty’s shoulder blade. When it’s quiet for a while and Bitty hasn’t moved, Jack smiles to himself and then drifts back to sleep. 

*

“Do you talk in your sleep?” Jack asks over frittata the next morning. 

Bitty’s cheeks pink up and his eyes get huge. “Oh lord, did I?” 

“I think so, Bits. You tried to tell me something about pineapples at three a.m.”

Bitty drops his face into his hands. “I’m mortified, sweetheart.”

“It’s fine, Bits. I thought it was cute.” Jack lets his toes find Bitty’s bare foot under the table, and gives him a nudge. 

Bitty pouts up at Jack, and his foot wriggles. “You did?”

Jack nods, and wiggles his toes harder.

*

It doesn’t happen again for a few weeks. It’s late September, and Bitty is down from Samwell for a random Wednesday night. He’d turned in a big paper earlier in the day and then hopped on commuter rail to make it to the apartment in time to have dinner with Jack after his afternoon training. 

Now, Bitty is tucked up against Jack’s side, sound asleep on the sofa. He’d only made it through about fifteen minutes of nature documentary before he’d drifted off. Jack’s barely keeping his eyes open himself. 

“Just try and stop me,” Bitty shouts, and he shifts hard against Jack’s side. 

“Stop you from what, Bits?” Jack asks, before he realizes Bitty is still asleep.

“Easterly!” Bitty adds, or at least that’s what Jack thinks he says. 

Jack tightens his arm around Bitty’s shoulders and shakes him a little. “Hey, Bits. Bittle. Wake up.”

“Huh?” Bitty opens his eyes and starts up, shoving himself away from Jack for a moment. 

“You okay?” 

Bitty looks around the room for a minute like he’s trying to figure out where he is. “Oh shit, sweetpea, I must have fallen asleep.” He settles back in and wraps his arms tight around Jack’s chest. 

“I know, bud. You were talking again.”

Bitty throws his head back and groans. “Oh no! What did I say this time?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but it sounded like you were...following the winds?” Jack brushes a stray hair out of Bitty’s face. 

Bitty considers this for a moment. “So, nothin’ incriminating?”

Jack grins. “Depends. Do you have something you need to confess?”

Bitty gets a shifty look, bites his lip, and says, “All I can say is that I definitely did _not_ start writing my paper at eleven thirty last night, that’s for sure. And I am definitely not exhausted today because if it.”

Jack shakes his head and then pops a kiss onto the tip of Bitty’s nose. “What were you and Holster watching?”

“Did I say something about that in my sleep?”

“No.”

“Then I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might be completely true,” Bitty replies. 

Jack’s heart can’t take it. He pulls Bitty up so that he can kiss him, soft and smiling. “Don’t go back to sleep yet, huh?” 

“Why, Jack Zimmermann. Do you have something else for us to do?”

It takes a bit of maneuvering to get Bitty slung over his shoulder properly so he can carry him down the hall, especially with the wriggling and laughter and shrieks, but once he does, Jack’s pretty sure the effort was worth it.

*

Jack doesn’t see the other side of it until November. 

He gets home from a five-day road trip, wiped out and nursing a significant bruise on his ribs. Jack’s been able to nap for a few hours, but he’s still moody and hurting when he picks Bitty up at the train. Bitty’s chatty but stressed; Jack can see it in the dark circles under his eyes and the backpack full of reading he’s supposed to be doing while he stays with Jack for the weekend. 

They eat dinner and make out for a while, and it’s really nice. But Jack’s ribs hurt too much to get much beyond kissing, and Bitty’s so tired he keeps blinking off to sleep while they snuggle together on the sofa. 

“Let’s go to bed, Bits,” Jack says, eager to get into his own sheets, with his own pillow, wrap up around Bitty’s comforting warmth, and get some real rest.

Once they are tucked in bed, though, Jack can’t sleep. He stares into the dark, willing his brain to shut down, watching the clock tick endlessly towards midnight. Every position is achy and uncomfortable. He’s just managed to close his eyes and relax for a few minutes when Bitty makes a little noise, an unfamiliar grunt, and Jack cracks open his eyes to see what’s up.

“Bitty?”

Bitty lets out a moan, loud and abrupt. It’s almost like he’s trying to say a word, but Jack can’t understand him. 

“Hey, bud. You okay?”

“Help!” Bitty shouts, sharp and unmistakable, and then grunts again, tossing his head to the side.

Adrenaline spikes through Jack’s system. He shakes Bitty’s shoulder, hard, and shouts back at him. “Bits! Do you hear me?”

Bitty responds with a terrifying, unintelligible sound, somewhere between a scream and a howl. Jack is up on his knees now, trying to wake Bitty. “I’m here, bud. Wake up for me, Bits. Come on.”

Bitty startles awake so hard he almost knocks Jack backwards, huffing out a panicked, “Oh my god!” 

Jack catches him up in his arms and holds him close. “You’re awake, Bits. You’re with me. You’re okay.” Jack’s heart is racing, and he can feel Bitty shaking, his skin damp with sweat. 

“Jack. You found me. I was calling for you,” Bitty says, and he grips on tight.

“It was a dream, bud. You were just dreaming.”

They hold on and rock together for a few minutes, until Jack can feel their breathing sync up, even out, and slow. Bitty goes quiet and calm in his arms. 

Real soft, Bitty whispers, “Oh lord, I’m so embarrassed.”

Jack pulls back so he can see Bitty’s face. “You had a nightmare, Bits. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I’m acting a fool.”

Jack leans in and kisses him, on the cheek, the forehead, the lips. “You’re not a fool, Eric.”

Bitty leans his face against Jack’s shoulder and let's out a long breath. 

“Do you remember what your were dreaming?” Jack asks.

Bitty’s quiet for a long moment, then says, “I have this one sometimes.” Jack feels him shiver hard against his collarbone, and he wonders how often _sometimes_ might be. 

“So there’s this dark space and I’m trapped there. It’s tight and there’s no air, but something else is in there with me. I don’t know what it is, but if I move, I know it’ll find me. Sometimes I can hear it breathe, and I know it wants to hurt me. Lord, that sounds so stupid. I’m not describin’ it right.”

“Bits, that sounds terrifying.”

“Does it?”

Jack nods. In the darkness, he can only just see Bitty’s profile, outlined by the faint light coming in off the street. He brushes his hand along Bitty’s cheek and leans in to kiss him once more.

“What would help you? Will you be able to get back to sleep?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I need something to distract me. Get my mind thinking about something else.”

Jack settles back against the pillows, and pulls Bitty in against his good side, tucked in away from his aching ribs. “Alright. Distraction.” Jack thinks for a minute. “What do you know about the Grumman F4F Wildcat?”

Bitty’s fingers start tracing a slow pattern across Jack’s chest. “Good lord, Jack. I don’t even know what category of thing that is.”

“Naval aircraft. World War II.”

“You know I don’t know a single solitary thing about any of that.”

“Then listen up, bud, and soon you will.”

Bitty snorts, and gently swats at Jack’s chest. Jack jumps right in, starting with Grumman’s design and development program in the late 1930’s, and after a few minutes, Bitty’s body grows slack against Jack’s side and his breathing slows and deepens. Jack keeps talking for a few more minutes. When he’s sure Bitty is asleep, he lets himself close his eyes and finally, blissfully, drift off himself.

*

“What’s this, honey?”

It’s been a week. Bitty’s back in Providence so he can come to the Falcs home game against the Caps, and spend the night. 

He trots out from the bedroom clutching a piece of note paper. Jack looks up from his book. 

“I found it next to the bed.”

Jack knows exactly what it is. “Oh, that’s just something I’ve been working on.”

Bitty reads. “ _List the Stanley Cup winners in order, starting in 1893._ _Favorite pie flavors and why I like them._ _Everything I’ve learned about Beyoncé Knowles in two and a half years._ What is this Jack?" Bitty keeps reading. " _Best golf clubs for various distances_?”

“It’s just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“If you have a nightmare again. I mean, I can stick with aircraft for a while, but I thought I should have a list of things to distract you with, just in case.”

Bitty looks up from the list and stares at Jack. Jack stares back.

“Jack Laurent Zimmermann, you are a ridiculous man.”

Jack shrugs. “I like to be prepared.”

“You know I have to come over there and kiss you a lot right now. Like, you have no idea how much,” Bitty says. “Your pre-game routine is just gonna have to hit pause for a few minutes.”

Jack's stomach does a little flip. "I can deal with that."

Bitty hurries over and grabs the front of Jack's shirt in both hands and pulls him in close, his mouth soft against his own. When they come up for air a few minutes later, Bitty's hair is deliciously disheveled and Jack is struggling to find a reason why they have to stop. 

“I'm crazy in love with you," Bitty says. "But don’t you dare try to comfort me by telling me about golf clubs, you maniac.”

Jack laughs, and pulls Bitty back down into his arms, and hopes with all his heart that he never has to.


End file.
